According to my mother, I came into this world with a head full of black hair. I’ll have to take her word for it because my memory can’t stretch back that far (oh, let’s say 40 years, give or take a few). I was a good baby (of course!), and true-to-form of all good babies, I lost most of my hair fairly quickly. Digression: The wives’ tale is that good babies rub their hair off because they sleep so much, therefore their heads are in almost constant contact with the sheet. But now that I think about it, wouldn’t squirmy, fussy babies rub it off faster? And since babies can’t do anything but lie around, isn’t every baby’s head in contact with something all the time?

So many conundrums in life to contemplate ::sigh:: But, let’s move on with the post.

The black hair came out and was replaced by blonde which stayed that way for a couple of years and then began to get dark again–very, very dark. By the time I started school, I was a brunette. My hair was never the gorgeous, glossy jet black so many women are blessed with. Just the average dark brown with some red highlights in the summer sun.

At the age of 28, I started getting a gray streak in the front that I actually thought was pretty cool. By the time I hit 40, it had spread across the top of my head like a fungus and had lost most (read:all) of its appeal. OMG! I was 40 and had enough gray hair that I actually had people ask me who did my frosting! My hair was short in the back, so the majority of it was that icky shade of gray that I detested.

Enter Lady Clairol. Yes indeed, I tried my hand at home coloring, choosing a nice, dark ash brown on the box. The fiasco ended with me acquiring a new nickname from my colleagues at work–Gina Lollobridgida. I had chosen poorly. The color was waaayyyy too dark, especially after everyone had gotten used to seeing me with all that silver around my face.

My hair stylist saved me with a do-over in a lighter shade–still dark brown, but a pretty shade of dark brown–and all was good for a few years. But, because I’d never colored my hair until I hit forty, I had years to make up for.

Let the experimenting begin! We went almost every shade of brown imaginable first, and then we took to the reds. I went through a few odd shades that ranged from rocket-fire red to an interesting burgundy before finally settling on a nice auburn for a few years.

Other people have wandering feet or wandering eyes; I have a wandering head, it seems. And it wasn’t long before I was ready for something new. This time we went back to my natural dark brown, but we added blonde highlights. It was a good look–the one Mother Nature had been trying to give me years before–she’d just chosen the wrong shade for the highlights. As the years passed, we started adding more and more highlights. And more. And more. One day I looked in the mirror and saw that I had gone completely blonde. And now that blonde gets lighter and lighter. I think the plan is to keep getting lighter until I’ve gone platinum. And maybe at that point, I’ll just let the gray grow in naturally. That’s still up for debate at this time, though.

I’ve never added them all up, but my hair has been many, MANY different shades of many different colors. Maybe not 50 of them, but stay tuned–I have an appointment at the end of this week.

How about you? Have you ever colored your hair? What is your favorite shade that you’ve been?

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17 Comments

I had auburn hair when I was born (with pictures, so it’s not just my mom’s word LOL) but it fell out and came in blonde. I was bright blonde as a toddler/young child, golden blonde as an older kid/teen/young adult, but after I had kids it darkened to a non-color. People keep telling me it’s not blonde, but it’s not brown! And now it’s going gray, but that looks like highlights so it’s not bad yet.

I haven’t colored it much, because I can’t afford to do it as frequently as you have to. I’ve gone red 2 or 3 times and blonde once, with Natural Instincts, the kind that washes out so I don’t have to deal with roots. 🙂 The blonde was unnoticable. The red was cool, especially the last time because it came out too orange and not dark enough so I did it with a second, darker box, and every day my boss was excited to come in and see what color it was. LOL

I’ve had highlights twice, too. The first time I went red and blonde and she striped me like a circus tent. It was ridiculous! The second time we did two shades of blonde and I loved it, but again, it’s too expensive to justify doing more than, oh, once a decade. LOLNatalie J. Damschroder recently posted..This Is New

A circus tent! I can see it in my imagination. 🙂 Yeah the cost is pretty high, although not as much in my small town as in the city. My hair grows really fast, so I have to do my roots every two weeks. I go in and have it done once a month, and now I’ve also learned to do it myself (with the right color!).

Cynthia D'AlbaMar 10, 2014 @ 07:51:06

I was born blond. Was blond my whole life. It’s not a “pretty, sunny” blond but a dirty dishwasher blond. I started highlighting my hair in my twenties. One day I realized I’d lightened and lightened until my hair was platinum blond! I was doing all that myself.

I went to a professional and had my hair taken back down closer to my original color.

Now my natural color is there with highlights and lowlights blended in. I have to do the highlights about every 12 weeks but during the winter, I can go 16 weeks.

Gray? Hmmm there’s probably some there but I’m not looking for it so I haven’t seen any! LOL

You’re hair is gorgeous, Cyndi! I haven’t noticed any gray you lucky duck:-) I seldom do highlights any more either, but my new love is the Brazilian Blowout. It says it should be done every three months, but my hair is so heavy that once a year keeps it pretty straight. I noticed yesterday (when it was wet) that it’s about time for another one. And THAT is expensive 🙁

BethCornelisonMar 10, 2014 @ 09:02:35

I’ve only in recent years started coloring my hair to cover the gray coming in that is sprinkled throughout but in clumps some places and makes my hair look dingy. The slightly lighter shade of dark brown in golden tones with one shade lighter highlights makes my hair so much brighter I really notice when my natural dark brown comes in.

Oooo, sounds pretty, Beth. I had mine a golden brown once , and I really loved that color. Bet it makes beautiful highlights against a darker brown.

keristevensMar 10, 2014 @ 10:17:02

I have had hair maple leaf red. I have had hair avocado green (my very last attempt at DIY blonde). My natural hair color is the shade of a dead possum on the side of the road on a foggy morning.

You will never see this color on my head.

My Grandmother dyed her hair jet black her whole life. In her 80s, my aunt conspired with the stylist to dial it back to a chestnut brown. Grandma was so angry she threatened to come back from the grave and haunt them both. It never happened again.

LOL! Keri, you made me laugh! My sister turned hers green once on a DIY blonde. Then the stylist turned it orange! It had to stay that way for a while, too, because at that point it became over-processed.
Dead possum? I know that shade! 🙂

I bought a bottle of Miss Clairol only once in high school back in the 70’s. My hair turned out a lovely shade of forest green. I looked like a spruce tree. I don’t know what happened. Needless to say, that was my one and only experience with trying to color my own hair. I have left it to a professional since. And as long as they make hair color this old broad will never walk around with gray hair. 🙂

I do highlights, just lighter shades of my natural color and usually only for conference season. Though at Christmas I needed a pick me up and spent far too much money getting highlights done midseason. But it did make me feel better. While my mother was fairly grey by the time she was 40, I’ve inherited my father’s genes — even when he died at 80, his hair wasn’t grey, it just lightened in color. (I do have a few grey hairs, but they’re hard to notice, especially with the highlighting.) But I’ve always wanted to do something wild–go auburn or something, or have a streak of a different color put in. I may get a “wild hair” for conference season in May. 😉Leah Braemel recently posted..No Accounting for Cowboys has back cover copy

Leah, during my red stage, I had a cute little sports car convertible in what I would call an eggplant color. One of my 8th grade students remarked one day how she LOVED that my car and my hair matched!!! LOL! made me rethink that one, pronto! 🙂

I have been coloring my hair now for quite a few years. When I was younger I use to think how foolish women were for doing so–I mean, everyone they were around all the time knew what color they really were–who were they trying to kid?! But my hair is that wonderful dirty dishwater blonde that is such a non-descript color I am surprised it is even qualifies as such, and I have always hated it. I was very blonde as a little girl, so I went blonde for awhile as an adult, then red, and then tried to go back to my natural color by stripping the red out. Not a good idea–I looked like BOZO for a few weeks while I waited for the orange to fade… I went natural until my oldest grand daughter was about 2. I saw a picture the girls took and I wondered who the gray lady in the back ground was. I was HORRIFIED when I realized it was ME!! I am now a nice dark auburn and plan on remaining so until I can no longer hold my head up for my daughter to apply the color or I am dead–which ever comes first!! 🙂

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